Sorrowful Black Death is Not a Hot Ticket and Seduction and Betrayal
Toni Morrison and bell hooks share the same views on how white America envisions blacks. In bell hooks' essays " Seduction and Betrayal" and " Sorrowful Black Death is Not a Hot Ticket" she focuses in on the portrayal of African Americans on the big screen. In "Seduction and Betrayal" hooks uses Spike Lee's Crooklyn to demonstrate how invaluable the life of a black person is. In " Sorrowful Black Death Is Not a Hot Ticket" she claims the Bodyguard and The Crying Game illustrate the notion that blacks, especially black females, are inferior to whites. In Toni Morrison's introduction to Birth of a Nation'hood , she suggests these same views by looking at the O.J. Simpson case. Through the use of these movies and courtcases, hooks and Morrison suggest that blacks are viewed as worthless, violent criminals, who are subordinate to the white race.
hooks believes, " The racial politics of Hollywood is such that there can be no serious representation of death and dying when the characters are African-Americans" (99). By stating this, she implies that black life in movies is thought of as useless. She finds that the majority of black death in movies is done through violence. An example of such a film is Paris Trout in which a young girl is brutally murdered and her relatives "too cowardly to save or avenge her life, ...willingly show the lawyer who will defend her killer the blood stains left by her dragging body, the bullet holes in the walls. Her life is worth nothing"( hooks, 100). Not even the girl's own family could find worth in her life. Her relatives cared so little that they were willing to accept money to show her kil...
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...al of black life are the views shared by the majority of Americans. Their views on this portrayal of blacks in America can be summed up in a quote taken from Melville's Benito Cereno, "We will see what the American...wanted to see: the head of the Negro 'fixed on a pole in the Plaza" (27).
Works Cited
hooks, bell. "Seduction and Betrayal." Writing as Re-Vision: A Student's Anthology. Ed. Beth Alvarado and Barbara Cully. Needham Heights: Simon & Schuster Custom Publishing, 1998. 108-111.
hooks, bell. "Sorrowful Black Death Is Not a Hot Ticket." Writing as Re-Vision: A Student's Anthology. Ed. Beth Alvarado and Barbara Cully. Needham Heights: Simon & Schuster Custom Publishing, 1998. 99-107.
Morrison, Toni. Introduction. Birth of a Nation'hood. Ed. Toni Morrison and Claudia Brodsky Lacour. New York: Pantheon Books, 1997. 7-28.
Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84.
Captivation or being restrained due to certain circumstances that prevents free choice is usually one of many great reasons to form revolutionary ideas. To get from captivation to liberation, one must consider change, a major component needed in order to gain freedom after enslavement. Latin America, in the eighteen hundreds, sought the need for change due to the resentment of the Spanish rule. Simon Bolivar, the revolutionary leader of Latin America, will seek independence from Spain. It was in Jamaica where Bolivar wrote a letter known as the “Jamaican Letter”, one of Bolivar’s greatest proposals. The letter emphasizes his thoughts and meanings of the revolution while envisioning a variety of governmental structures, of the New World, that could one day be recognized.
...changed after the World Trade Center towers collapsed. Sikh truck drivers have reported people violently cutting them off and calling them "ragheads." Congregants at Gurdwara Sahib in Fresno had racist graffiti spray painted on their temple. However, "With the passage of time, people have become informed about Sikhs, and the situation has much improved," says Amrik Singh Virk, temple secretary at the Sikh Center of the Pacific Coast in Selma. (Orozco) Unfortunately this change took three years in the Fresno community for the public to finally realize not all Sikhs are terrorists. Although the racial tension has eased with the passage of time,"It has gotten a little better, but, as a minority group, we're still smarting," says Poonia, a Fresno doctor. "There still is ignorance, misunderstanding and prejudice. Color lines have eroded, but they have not been eliminated."
Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” 1995. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84.
Morrison, Toni, "Recitatif." African American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology. Ed. Al Young. New York: Harper Collins, 1996. 209-25.
By writing Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery Bell Hooks gave black women a chance to relate to one another on issues that we are often afraid to express. In PSC 318 we often discussed the stigma of being a “strong black woman” and the negative aspects of that stigma. In my eyes thee is nothing negative about being strong and there is surely nothing negative about being a black woman. But, as a black woman we are looked at providers, caregivers, mentors, mother figures, a shoulder to lean on and much more. Bell Hooks touches on the touchy subject in the black community and that is mental health. Often times as black people we worry about physical health and spiritual health, in the black community our answer to everything and anything going wrong in our lives is to pray about it. Yes, God can heal and help us but Bell Hooks tells us in writing Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery that we need to take care of our mental health as well as pray. Black women rarely go to therapist to talk about their problems because they are so worried about helping everyone else handle their problems.
Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84.
Hooks, Bell. "Narratives of Struggle." Critical Fictions:The Poltics of Imagnitive Writing. N.p.: Dia Center for the Arts, 1991. 53-61. Print.
“Notes of a Native Son.” 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84.
The Mayan civilization was located in southeastern Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula. One of the first American civilizations, it lasted from about 1000 B.C.-1542 A.D. Their civilization flourished during the Sixth Century. They built many temples and over forty cities. The Mayan population consisted of almost fifteen million people who were all living in one of the many cities. The Mayan people were extremely religious and believed in multiple gods which meant they were polytheistic. Their most commonly worshiped god was the Maize God, or god of corn, as corn was the most grown and most relied on crop. The Mayans grew all of their own food so they needed to have useful farming methods. The one they used most often was the slash and burn method, which involved cutting down trees and burning them to make the soil fertil which was necessary to grow crops. This method worked for many years, but soon started to backfire. The Mayans were ahead of their time, but that did not prevent their mysterious decline which occurred between the years 800 A.D.-900 A.D. Although it is not known exactly why the powerful empire fell, but there are various probable theories. The mysterious decline of the Mayans may have been caused by
Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84.
In conclusion, after view this film, it is clear that one can see how black youth are being viewed as killers and savages. This is not true. There have been many admirable scholars and scientists who come from the African American culture. This movie, though it depicts what goes on in South America, takes the violence committed by black youth too far. One cannot view a film and take it that this is what a race is like. The filmmakers depicted black youth in a harsher light.
In an interview, Morrison is asked about her feelings on O.J. Simpson. This brings up the issue of “black irrationality”. She chuckles and responds “The story of the case is a marketable story. And that story is made up of black irrationality, and black cunning, and black stupidity, and the black predator” (Haines). She then continues with this memorable quote, “We've always been considered to be irrational, emotional, lunatic people.” In Beloved, Sethe portrays the epitome of “bla...
In her article "Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination" bell hooks argues that the distance between the white and black races created a tense relationship between the two. This tension caused a multitude of problems that are still present today including systems of domination, stereotypes of one another, white naivety of their privilege and fear of white individuals. Similarly, Ruth Frankenberg 's article "White Women, Race Matters" discuss these issues but from the perspective of a white feminist. Many of the same points can be connected to hooks ' arguments because the main aspects with races focus on the idea that whiteness is a perspective in which we see ourselves, others and society and also that whiteness continues to remain
Lubiano, Wahneema. "Morrison, Toni (1931– )." African American Writers. Ed. Valerie Smith. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001. 581-597. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.